There’s a war going on alright. And it is, in fact, a war against tradition ~ a Christmas tradition. But it’s not a war that Fox News is going to cover. I’m speaking, of course, of the war on Jewish Christmas.

Everyone knows that Christmas is the day Jews make a pilgrimage to the best Chinese food restaurants. (Yes, the best. Greasy Kung Pao? We’re never coming back. My people don’t play when it comes to Chinese food.) Once we’ve consumed 14,000 calories (most of that in the Shrimp Fried Rice ~ don’t judge ~ keeping kosher “in the house” is another fine tradition), we make our way to the movies. It’s a day Jews spend together that dates back thousands of years. Or maybe just 20 or 30. And maybe it’s really just an American Jewish [continue reading...]

Allow me to brag for a moment. I have a pretty solid marriage. I hesitate to write that because putting it out there feels like an invitation for bad things to happen. A moment fixed in time that all but begs for a Google search should things ever go to shit. But after 16 plus years, we’re still madly in love with one another. And perhaps more importantly, we’re still madly in like with one another. And on most days we somehow manage to squelch the impulse to stab one another with one of the dull, rusty, turn-of-the-century butter knives we received as a wedding gift. Most days.

But recently we came upon a pothole in an otherwise smooth journey. Well, a crevasse, really. A canyon. A large canyon. Ok, fine, the other day we reached the [continue reading...]

I have written before about how Rick and I have gotten married quite a few times, the first time being on June 24, 2000. What I haven’t written about were the family members who conscientiously objected to our wedding. Bigotry and ignorance, given the sheen of legitimacy by calling them religion, prevented my mother’s first cousin’s wife from sharing in our joy that day. She felt that she could not witness our union – that she could not celebrate with us. Her husband, my mother’s first cousin, stood with his wife. They did not attend our wedding. They did not RSVP the invitation. They sent us neither a gift nor even a note of congratulations. Nothing…(Click to read the full post on VillageQ.)

I’ve written before about the differences I felt in the experience of growing up Jewish and growing up gay.

As a Jewish kid I had a bris, was sent to Hebrew school and had a Bar Mitzvah. My cultural identity was passed on to me at the dinner table with the kugel. My pride in that identity was handed to me in books, movies, heroes. Sandy Koufax! (Also, Sandy was left-handed. See, left-handed Jews can do anything!) It seeped through the very pores of my house. It was something my family shared and that my parents found not just important to pass on to us (me and my brother), but something absolutely necessary to our upbringing ~ to the composition of our characters ~ to the men they wanted us to become. And frankly, it wasn’t just important to them, it was necessary for them. Necessary for them to know they [continue reading...]

I am so very proud to have been a part of this remarkable group of writers, artists, moms, people. Click here to see the other pieces that were read/shared in the show. It was truly a remarkable piece of theater. If you get a chance to see a production of Listen to Your Mother next Mother’s Day, go! It is an incredible experience.

I Love You Anyway

I love you anyway.

That was my mother’s reaction when I came out of the closet. I was 13, maybe 14.

It was the best she had at the time. It would be years before she would begin to understand how those words were almost perfect. Nearly. But perfect [continue reading...]

Our wedding ~ the 1st one ~ felt like a graduation. In my head, I knew it was the beginning of something, but really it just felt like an ending. A destination. I had found him. The one! You!!! Our wedding was the exclamation point that followed the long and occasionally winding sentence of my dating life. How was I supposed to know that that moment under the chuppah was less exclamation point than ellipsis? Hey, you don’t know what you don’t know.

So I married you. The man I loved. The man who had me not quite at hello, but so soon after that that loved ones flew to my side to check out both you and my mental state. I remember saying to my mother, only a few weeks after we [continue reading...]

A few years ago at Pride, an eldergay, upon hearing that I was living with my husband of 13 years (then) and was doing everything in my power to secure the right of every LGBT American to marry the person they love, looked me up and down and said, “Oh, you’re an assimilation queen.” He did not approve. He did not believe that the battles he fought so hard in the 70s and 80s should have led our people to the altar – the purest, most undiluted symbol of banality. As far as he was concerned, gay people had not been excluded from, as much as freed from the asphyxiation of a white picket fence…

I googled traditional wedding gifts and found nothing. It seems that when you get to 49, all eyes focus on the next one, thus dulling the achievement of 49 and treating 50 as if it were a foregone conclusion. So I started thinking, what can I get you that will be meaningful, worthy of 49 years ~ roughly 17,885 days, 429,240 hours, 25,744,400 minutes, 1,545,264,000 seconds ~ roughly, if I did my math right, which I very well may not have ~ but still remain affordable? What indeed??? You just went on vacation. You have more than enough dishes. You have 14,000 sets of mostly complete silver, some of which you can’t really account for your possession of, that you never use. Any [continue reading...]

Dear Amy Kushnir, Duck Dynasty cretins, Benham brothers, Adam Carolla, and every other human being who has ever squealed about their First Amendment rights being taken or lamented the rise of the Gaystapo, the Gay Mafia, or the Gay Thought Police or who has worried about the rise of “gaytheism.” (Personally, I love “gaytheism” and intend to use it to describe my own personal religious views.)

This letter goes out to all of you ~

The reason you’re angry is quite simple, and understandable really. In a sense, I feel bad for you, because your world has changed so radically, shifted so quickly, so thoroughly, that you don’t know which end is up.

The shift I’m referring to is that your LGBT bigotry is no longer a monologue. When you speak, when you spew your bile, we are no [continue reading...]